


Vega's Eggs

by Adanska



Series: built on a history of scars [5]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Backstory, Family, Gen, POV Character of Color, POV Original Female Character, References to Child Abuse, Vega's Eggs, also a bit of under-aged drinking, the author does not know spanish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 21:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adanska/pseuds/Adanska
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmelita knocked on the door with her knuckles, her bags at her feet and her heart heavy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vega's Eggs

**Author's Note:**

> This is only part of 'scars' because the Shepard is Kris, but can be read stand-alone.

Carmelita knocked on the door with her knuckles, her bags at her feet and her heart heavy. The door swung open, a woman standing there with wild eyes and the sound of children screaming in the background. “Mi corazon,” Carmelita said warmly, her arms open; and Marisol fell, shaking, into her embrace.

“My son is a fool,” she said in Marisol’s kitchen, the boys running off to put her bags away in the spare room; she filled a battered kettle, a splash of red in the warm yellow room. “You knew this when you married him, corazon.”

“I know,” Marisol said, weary and sad, her hands combing futilely at her tangled hair. “Thank you for coming.”

“Oh, cora,” she said, the kettle whistling merrily, “you don’t need to thank me for doing what I wanted to.”

“Still. Thanks.” There was a bit of spine licking around the defeat; Carmelita smiled.

“De nada, m’ija,” she said, serving up warm tea and honey that felt like comfort and home. “Drink up.”

  
  
James was lurking in the kitchen, watching her, wary and cold; it made her heart hurt, to see a child that old in soul. “Watch close, niño,” she told him, cracking eggs with one hand each, a skill born from endless practice in a yellow kitchen much like the one she found herself in now. He didn’t say anything, her quiet boy, just dragged a crooked stool over and clambered up it, his dark eyes following her hands as she cracked egg after egg. “This is my special recipe,” she told him, watching him around the edges as she worked. “Passed down through the generations; because you are the oldest, it falls to you to learn it.”

“Carlos says cooking’s a girl’s job,” James told her sulkily, face buried in thin little arms; they both ignored the faint scattering of bruises, slowly healing.

She arched a brow at him, halving an onion without looking, her hands steady and sure. “Well, Carlos will soon find himself going hungry, if that’s his attitude,” she said smartly, knife a rapid blur as she chopped the halves into slices and then those slices into dices until she had a whole mountain of chopped onion, scraping the whole pile into the bowl with a quick flick. “There is no shame in knowing how to provide and keep oneself, niño, and no shame in being a girl, neither. Were it but for one chromosome, _you_ would be Enrica Jamie instead of James Enrico, niño, and you had best remember that.”

“Sí, Abuela,” he said, insolence tugging at his words. She frowned, gesturing towards him with the knife.

“Do you think your mamá is any less, because she is a woman?” she asked, cleaving a red pepper in one satisfying _thwack_. “Do you think _me_ any less, because I am a woman?” she asked, ripping out the seeds with two solid pulls, tossing them aside. “My sex? My _gender_? Does not make me weak, niño, no more than yours makes you strong. There is a reason the Alliance takes both men and women to be its soldiers, and Vegas, we have served time and time again, sons and daughters both.” She knocked the diced peppers into the bowl with the rest, adding a seeded and chopped jalapeño on its heels. “¿Comprendes?”

“ _Sí_ , Abuela,” he said, worlds more contrite.

She sniffed. “Good.” She worked in silence for the next few minutes, adding in crumbled bacon from the oven to the eggs as the peppers and onions sizzled quietly on the cooktop. Measuring out a dash of cream, she whisked the eggs, wrists steady and sure.

“Did you learn how to cut like that from the army?” James asked her, watching avidly as she poured the eggs in with peppers and onions, folding it gently as she threw in an odd handful or two of cheese.

She laughed, moving the pan quick and sure on the burner. “Dios mío, no. I learned _that_ from _my_ abuela when I was only a little older than you.”

“Eight an’ a half?” he suggested, sly, and she appreciated the boldness.

“Ten,” she corrected, eying him sternly. “Now, were you watching?”

“Sí, Abuela.”

“Good. You will report before meal times, and you will learn to fend for yourself. Now,” she said, pulling out a jar of Mikhael-from-home’s salsa, “get your brother and mother, breakfast is ready.”

  
  
Carlos practically shoved him from the ratty hatchback, letting him drop to the ground instead of landing fully, quickly speeding away. On the one hand, James couldn’t really blame him, he wouldn’t want to get caught drunk, underaged, unliscened, and transporting several others just as bad either, but on the _other hand_ , he’d just been booted out of a moving vehicle and managed to wallop his face on the landing.

God, he was too drunk for this shit.

Carefully, so very carefully, he made his way into the house, avoiding every single creaky spot and strewn out toy along the floor. Safely in his room, he didn’t bother to get undressed, just fell face first into his bed and was out.

  
  
Four in the morning. It was late, and she was old; she didn’t sleep as much as she used to, too restless, haunted by bad dreams that chased her every time she laid down.

Four in the morning, and James was still out.

In the dark, in her tiny room above the kitchen, she sat by the open window and waited. It wasn’t the first time she’d held vigil, and it wouldn’t be the last; the moon was bright, she had a book, and Lacy’s special tea still tasted just fine after all these years (not made by Lacy any more, but her granddaughter was a deft hand at the blend, so who was she to complain?).

She listened as Carlos’ father’s hatchback drove passed the house, listened as James hit the ground with a thud and a curse. She messaged Carlos’ father--Alex thanked her and apologised for his son; she told him de nada as an answer to both before tucking her old phone away. James was in the house, now, avoiding most of the spots in the house that would make noise. Not all, but most, and she felt a little inkling of pride under the anger roaring through her head.

When she was sure he was asleep, she got up and padded down the hall. He was passed out on the top of the bed, shoes dangling off one end while he wheezed through his pillow. Lips pursed, Carmelita prodded and shoved until he was curled up on his side, recovery position, a trashcan tucked near his bed. Lightly, she stroked her fingers over the scrape on his face (congruent with a fall from a still-moving vehicle), brushed his hair back. Her little niño wasn’t so little any more; he was getting bigger, getting older, and she could see the shadow of his father, her m’ijo, in him. She could see her cabrón of a son, drunk and violent, with his capullo friends all laughing and thieving and _hurting_ just like _his_ father with _his_ friends--

Pulling her hand back, she swallowed the decades’ old pain, pushed it down and away until she could breath easily in, easily out, and left James’ room as quietly as she’d entered. There would be time to deal with it in the morning.

  
  
When he awoke, four hours later, he had one shining moment of feeling perfectly alright. He was mid thought about something relating to how hangovers were a crock of bull when everything slammed down at once. His head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the outside and was still merrily going along; his mouth tasted like dead and rotting, and his stomach?

He managed to get to the tiny half-bath he and Felix shared before hurling, but only barely, stretched out on the cold porcelain as he hurled and heaved.

“James?” his mother called, her Sunday heels clicking on the wood. “Are you okay?”

“m’fine,” he slurred to the toilet, gagging. He felt a cold hand on his forehead, his mother’s perfume surrounding him like a balm. He threw up again. “thinksommin’ate.”

“Told you you couldn’t trust Carlos,” his abuela said from the hall; he could practically feel her disapproval as she looked him over. “Why don’t you take Felix and Rosario to church; I can stay here and take care of James.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s no problem, cora. My knee is bothering me today; I was thinking of staying home, anyway.”

His mom and abuela moved further away, and James was lost in a dizzying spell of heaving and heaving until a red plastic cup was shoved under his nose.

“Drink,” his abuela said calmly; he did, sipping slowly at the water, his stomach roiling. “When you can keep that down, come down to the kitchen.” She walked away, her footsteps steady and sure, no limp in her soldier’s march.

He drank the water. Drank more, when he ended up throwing that up, too, drank until he could keep it down and, unsteady on his feet, his head pounding, he made his way down to the kitchen, a prisoner to his execution.

Abuela was at the cooktop, still in her Sunday best. A plate of dry toast sat at the counter, a second red solo cup sitting next to it, and he followed the unspoken orders, sat and tentatively started chewing.

“This is the only time,” she told him over the hissing of the pan, as unwavering as steal. “If I or your mother ever, and I mean _ever_ , catch you doing something so stupid again, you will be out of this house.”

He choked. “Abuela!” he croaked, eyes wide. “It, it was only a little beer! I don’t--”

“You are _fourteen_!” she roared, spinning on him like a devil, her hands slapping the counter. “You are fourteen, and you got _plastered_ with your friends on rotgut tequila and basement vodka. You then let another drunk fourteen year old, who did not know how to drive, drive you home. Do you think your mother and myself deaf as well as stupid, that we did not hear you come home last night, stumbling and raving?” Whirling away, she turned back to the cooktop, shoulders heaving.

“Did...did anyone get hurt?” he asked, voice quavering, because the only way they would have known it was Carlos driving was if someone had caught him, was if--

“The only casualty seems to be your face,” his abuela said sharply. “Carlos is grounded for the next four months; you are not allowed over there.”

“Abuela, it was just a few drinks,” he said, pleading. “I don’t...I don’t _understand_.”

His abuela said nothing, focused only on her cooking. He ate the rest of the toast, although it tasted like cardboard and his stomach was cramping.

“Please, niño,” his abuela said softly, “just please wait a few more years. For me and your mama, just wait a few more years.”

He bowed his head. “Okay,” he promised, blinking away tears. “I promise.”

A plate of eggs entered his vision. Looking up, he saw his abuela smiling at him lopsided, equally sad and warm. “Best thing for a hangover,” she told him, wry, crossing her arms as she leaned back against the cooktop’s counter. “Once you’ve eaten those up, I’ll give you something for your head, and then you can go sleep it off.”

“Lo siento, Abuela,” he said again.

She waved it off. “Es perdonado. Just not again, James, ¿me escuchas?”

“Te escucho, Abuela.” She was right; the eggs did do wonder for the hangover, just not the guilt. Guilt was not a thing easily cured, especially when he didn’t know the source. (It wasn’t until later, hiding beneath his covers, that he thought of his father, of the pervasive stench of tequila and cervezas surrounding him, and he had to scramble not to throw up all over his bed. The next time Carlos and the other tried to get him to drink, he stood up and left the party, and again, and again, because he meant the promise he’d made to his abuela, even before he knew why she’d made him swear it; how could he break it once he’d understood?)

  
  
Carmelita watched her niño make his way around her kitchen, a small smile tugging at her lips even as her heart hurt. Marisol may have passed on, and her son may still be a maldito cabrón, but her nietos were all good, strong people that she was proud to call familia. “I think I’m going to join the Alliance, Abuela,” James said, pretending to be absorbed in futzing with the cooktop. Smiling, she allowed his illusion, sipping her tea as he poked and prodded the cooktop’s dials and buttons.

“I think you’ll do well, niño,” she told him, warm and affectionate. “You always had the head for it; the mouth, well...” she shrugged. “We’ll see.”

“Ha, ha,” he said sourly, but she could see his smile all the same. “Here you go, Abuelita,” he said, placing a plate gently in front of her. “Eggs, fresh off the cooktop.” Eggs, scrambled with cream, with crumbled bacon and sauteed onions and red peppers and a chopped jalapeño winking out from every mound, with a nice line of salsa on the side.

Picking up her fork, she teased out a clump, dragging it through the salsa before placing it in her mouth. She chewed, thoughtful, pretending not to notice as James got tenser and tenser.

She swallowed, and beamed. “Well done! You are now worthy of the Vega name.”

“Gracias, Abuela,” he said, and she knew he was as pleased as her.

  
  
Standing in an apartment too fancy for an army grunt like him, James listened to the music of his crewmates around him as crawling back to the land of the living, a symphony of moaning and groaning. Smiling to himself, he cracked egg after egg into a bowl with one hand as he agitated a nearly finished batch with the other. It had taken a couple of years, but he’d perfected the Vega style of cooking; it was always a laugh to see the stunned looks on people’s faces when they watched a ham-fisted muscle head like himself crack eggs with one hand, or dice a whole onion in under fifteen seconds. Little flashes of skill, learned at his abuela’s knee.

He kissed the back of a knuckle, raised it to the sky. ‘ _Wherever you are, Abuela, vaya con dios._ ’ He was fiercely glad that his abuela had passed away in her sleep, three years ago; glad that her death was peaceful, and that she didn’t have to see what the Earth had become. ‘ _Although_ ,’ he thought wryly, ‘ _if there was anyone I’d want on my side in this war, it would definitely be my abuela_.’

The commander stumbled into the kitchen, pulling him from his thoughts before he could think of his brother or sister. He grinned at her. “Mornin’, Lola.”

Shepard glared at him, as potent as tar. “You are a terrible person, private,” she croaked, coming over to collapse at the breakfast bar across from him, her head buried in her arms.

Chuckling to himself, he finished up the first batch, slinging up plates as he rotated out the next step. “Eat up, Commander,” he said softly, taking a moment to place a plate near her head. “You know my eggs.”

She laughed. “I do, indeed, know your eggs,” she told him wryly, lifting her head up to brace it with one fist, other hand reaching for the provided fork. “In fact, I believe I know your eggs so well, I need to reevaluate my drinking habits.”

“And leave us without your wit and poise,” he mock bemoaned, chopping an onion. “Say it ain’t so, Lola.”

“Fine, fine.” Scooping up a bite, she held the fork in the air. “To your abuela,” she toasted, serious.

“To my abuela,” he agreed, just as solemn. “May she be slinging eggs and chewing out traviesos in heaven as we speak.”

“Amen,” Shepard said, the words unfamiliar on her lips but truly meant, and he had to duck his head, hiding his grin. ‘ _And that was what made Shepard ‘Shepard’._ ’

“Eggs!” he called out in a voice that made the hungover cry and Shepard flinch. “I got eggs over here!”

**Author's Note:**

> A possible backstory for Vega's abuela, and her eggs. I don't speak Spanish AT ALL, so if any of this is wrong, please let me know so I can fix it!


End file.
